As you may already know, whales around the world have been found dead or dying following encounters with mid-frequency military sonar. Although the Navy itself has acknowledged the lethal impacts of this technology, which floods vast areas of the ocean with ear-splitting noise, it has made no assurances that it will take common-sense steps necessary to protect marine life. The Navy fails to explain, for example, how it will protect migrating gray whales along California's coast; how it will conduct exercises at night or in other conditions of low visibility; or whether it will enforce robust "safety zones" around sonar vessels to avoid exposing whales to dangerous sound. The Coastal Commission has required these and other protective measures of the Navy and other noise-producers in the past, and it should demand no less here.

They do this also in the Juan de Fuca strait and this was reported last year here. It destroys their ears and disorients them. We have pods of orcas in this area and they are moving out of the area. National security is the trump card that beats out any protests.

Who'da thought that marine life would be victims like us of the un-Patriot Act! Sticks to their policy of anything not human gets it!

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In the last several years, thousands of you have taken action to help stop the Navy from deploying harmful low-frequency sonar, and in 2004 NRDC reached a landmark agreement with the Navy limiting the use of this particular type of sonar. But the Navy continues to use mid-frequency sonar, another form of high-intensity sonar, to blast large expanses of the ocean with sound. This technology has been implicated in a growing number of whale strandings and even deaths around the world, from the state of Washington to the Bahamas to Greece.

Most recently, Navy training exercises off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii, in early July coincided with a stampede to shallow water by a pod of up to 200 melon-headed whales. Melon-headed whales (which resemble dolphins) usually stay in deep water and are not known to beach themselves. Although concerned locals in kayaks and canoes were eventually able to herd most of the whales back out to sea, one young whale did become stranded and die. It's too soon to know for certain whether the sonar was the direct cause of the pod's distress, but the incident was similar enough to previous strandings caused by sonar that it warrants a full investigation by the Navy.

NRDC has sent a letter to the Navy, demanding that it stop using high-intensity, mid-frequency sonar in a way that harms whales. You can help by sending the Navy your own letter.

What to do:Send a message telling the Navy to protect whales from mid-frequency sonar.